In the US, housing starts plummeted 30.2% m-o-m to 891,000 in April, missing economists’ forecasts of 927,000. Housing activity froze due to limitations enforced to prevent the Covid-19 outbreak, leading to the lowest level since February 2015. Housing starts for

The Colombian peso fell 0.71% against the greenback to close at 3,904.78 Friday following the release of economic data which indicated a sharp economic contraction on y-o-y basis in March 2020. Notably, on yearly basis, the country’s retail sales also

According to the Business New Zealand, the Performance of Manufacturing Index decreased to 26.1 in April 2020, from 38 in March 2020. The reading reflected the lowest level in manufacturing activity since the series started getting published. All five sub-indices

The Mexican peso gained 0.05% to trade at 24.3379 against the greenback despite a 5% m-o-m drop in the industrial production in March, following an amended 2% decline in the earlier month and compared with economists expectation for a 6.1%

Wall Street ended strongly in green Friday in spite of a new historical job loss of 20.50 million in April and a record high unemployment rate of 14.7%. Stocks gained on investors’ optimism about reopening of the economy soon and

The Japanese yen is losing ground against the greenback after the release of a series of poor PMI (Composite, services) and household sepnding data from Japan. At the time of writing this article, the USD/JPY pair was trading at 106.45.

The Aussie rallied against the greenback despite the data published by the Ai Group indicated a steep fall in the Australian Performance of Construction Index. Likewise, the composite and services PMI (purchasing managers’ index) also recorded a historical low reading.

The euro hit $1.0994 Friday, reflecting the highest level since last month, after the European Central Bank maintained its benchmark interest rates, while reducing the interest rate on emergency loan scheme for banks. Investors were anticipating the central bank to

The Japanese yen rallied against the greenback to trade at 107.149 on the first day of the week, despite the announcement of expansion of stimulus package by the Bank of Japan to nullify the negative impact of the Covid-19 outbreak.

The Russian ruble gained against the US dollar for the third consecutive day to hit $74.1, as crude oil prices continued to appreciate. The ruble has gained in spite of rate cuts to six-year low by the central bank of